1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk drive for use in a personal computer or an audio system, capable of loading a disk package containing, in the inside thereof, a mixture of different types of disks such as a CD, CD-ROM, DVD, PD, etc., and driving a selected disk drawn from the disk package.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of optical disk media have been proposed. They include: a bit modulation optical disk such as a CD (Compact Disk), CD-ROM (CD Read Only Memory), and a CD-R (CD-Rewritable) which can be written once; a writable/readable optical disk based on phase change such as a PD (Power Disk); and a magneto-optical writable/readable disk such as an MO (Magneto-Optical memory) and HS (Hyper Storage), Furthermore, a DVD-ROM (Digital Versatile Disk ROM) based on the bit modulation technique is known to have a large capacity and is used in audio systems, video systems, and computer systems. A DVD-RAM (DVD-Random Access Memory) is a writable/readable disk based on the phase change technique. An MD (Mini Disk) is a small-sized magneto-optical disk and is used in audio and computer systems.
A variety of disk drives for driving such disks are available. A disk drive adapted to load one disk of a particular type is widely used. Another type of drive such as that known as a CD changer has the capability of loading a plurality of disks of the same type and driving a desired disk selected from the plurality of those disks.
Furthermore, a disk drive has been proposed recently which is adapted to accommodate both CD and DVD and is capable of driving whichever type of disk a user loads.
In the disk drives adapted to handle different types of disks, however, only one disk, for example either a CD or a DVD, can be loaded at a time. No disk drive is known which can load different types of disks at the same time. In particular, no disk drive is known which can load, at the same time, a plurality of disks including both read-only type and writable type disks, such as a combination of a CD-ROM and a DVD-RAM or a combination of a DVD-ROM and a DVD-RAM. Optical disk media will be used in a wider variety of fashions with the increasing variety of computer software and with the increasing data size required in various applications. Thus, there is a great need for a disk drive capable of loading different types of disks at the same time.
One known CD changer has a plurality of slidable trays disposed in the inside of a magazine. After loading disks on the respective trays, if the magazine is placed in a disk drive, a desired tray in the magazine is selected and drawn out. In the majority of conventional CD changers, however, each tray is lightly held by means of a spring or the like so that trays do not drop out of the magazine when the magazine is taken out of the disk drive. If the magazine constructed in the above-described fashion encounters a physical shock when it is held by a hand or in a similar situation, an undesirable ejection of a tray from the case can occur, and a disk may drop from the tray.
Read-only disks such as a CD and VD-ROM have a high resistance to contamination on a surface facing an optical head, caused by for example touch of a finger. Such contamination does not have a significant effect on the reading reliability. In contrast, writable disks such as a DVD-RAM and PD are sensitive to contamination on the disk surface, and even slight contamination can affect the writing reliability. Therefore, it is required to handle a writable disk with a greater care than a read-only disk. However, no disk drives are known which can protect a writable disk from contamination.
To meet the above requirements, an object of the present invention is to provide a disk drive capable of loading a disk package containing, in its inside, different types of disks and also having the locking capability for preventing the disks from moving out of the disk package when the disk package is taken out of the main part of the disk drive.